This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
if you don't know how, ask, Lemmy is covered in Linux users
All of my devices except my work one are now Linux.
I have an old surface go 2 that good a massive new lease on life from using arch plasma. Double the battery life and everything. It could no longer get updates from MS because there was no longer enough space on the main drive to download and install the next update.
Then I have an old retro gaming pc that used to be for XP gaming but I ended up sticking bazzite on it for a test and it's stayed that way and because of that when I built my girlfriend's latest PC we decided to go bazzite desktop for her. And after getting past a few growing pains at the beginning that made it look like we made the wrong decision (due to an old 10xx gtx gpu - now on 3050) she's been enjoying it and now it's just standard.
Then I have my proper gaming PC that I use like a console so I put bazzite-deck on it as soon as I got an AMD card. And I've never felt better. HTPC console like gaming on windows was a fucking arse-on, even with steam big picture mode, because it doesn't get all of the cool bells and whistles that let you control basic system settings right from steam like you can on steam os and bazzite deck.
For work I've started moving away from visual studio to VS Code (i know it's still MS but I do C# .NET work and rider is too expensive, I don't want a subscription for an IDE) to allow me to easily transition to fully working on Linux if the opportunity ever arises. Whether it be with my current employer and me convincing them to let me to install Linux on my laptop or with a future company. We'll see which comes first ;)
Now it's time to get and decouple from Google. Currently figuring out with android auto maps app I want (waze won't run for some reason, my current winner at the moment is tom tom amigo). Then it's on to getting a password manager, then a new browser (preferably way more lightweight than chrome) and potentially a Google pay replacement(?).
Any suggestions and opinions from anyone here - even though this is tangentially off topic - would be greatly appreciated.
VS Code (i know it's still MS but I do C# .NET work and rider is too expensive, I don't want a subscription for an IDE)
VSCodium is a thing too if you want to un-Microsoft even further.
I use it for C# development on Linux and it works well.
getting a password manager
Bitwarden and Keepass are usually the go tos, depending on your use case.
then a new browser
Firefox or if you want to decouple from Mozilla as well, Librewolf works pretty well.
potentially a Google pay replacement
I'm not aware of any open Google Pay replacements other than taking a card with you.
As soon as you get rid of Google on your phone, you get rid of Google Pay.
I'm building a new gaming PC and it's going to be a Linux build and if it doesn't work the way you guys keep insisting it will, I swear to God.
My last experience with Linux was with Ubuntu about 10 years ago and I can't say it was a particularly great experience I'm hoping that in the last decade it's improved its user experience.
Please update this if you fun into the usual brick wall of hand modifying config files or self-compiling some obscure git pull just to make basic things like audio and network work.
AMD or NVidia?
Most games that I play work well on Linux with AMD. Most who have problems seem to have Nvidia. Anti-cheat stuff can be an exception though so best to ensure what you enjoy works.
If you can check hardware compatibility before hand, it helps. An up to date kernel like Fedora, OpenSuse TW or Arch can help. Wine recommends up to date kernel.
I also tried Ubuntu 10 years ago and threw it away in anger. Have been using mint for over a year now and game on it regularly. All I really needed to know was: use proton and add 'gamemoderun %command%' into the launch option of the game.
Except for mods on Nier. That was a hassle.
Its actually more annoying on the work computer. Ms office windows apps are kind of great compared to libreoffice, especially with the collaboration options. But Linux is nicer to do dev work on so ¯\(ツ)/¯
Ms office windows apps are kind of great compared to libreoffice
Did you give OnlyOffice a try? https://flathub.org/apps/org.onlyoffice.desktopeditors
I did, it is a little easier for me to use than libre.
I'm migrating to Linux Mint, 99% of steam games work as well as on windows. Those who don't are mostly multiplayer games that insist to have some shitty kernel anticheat.
I'll still keep windows on dual boot when I need it, though.
Shit , I just installed oblivion reboot and worked on day 1 without issues in popOS.
Gaming is such a nonissue on Linux now
I’d have to disagree that it’s a non issue it’s definitely improved, but I still come across little irritations that pop up on Linux but not Windows games.
It's a non issue for most games, which is great but every now and then there's a game that's too tightly integrated into windows (like phasmophobia and it using the cortan API of all things for voice chat) or one that relies on an incompatible anti cheat system.
The Linux community need to figure out a new friendly standard to ensure anti cheat without out needing to act like a backdoor to the root kernel. I wish I was smart enough to help with that sort of stuff.
Well no Helldivers if I go that route
Helldivers works fine on Linux, I play it from time to time.
Nobara or Bazzite are your best Linux options for gaming. I've been on Nobara for over a year with nothing but good things to say about the distro and its community.
With the efforts I'm doing to try and de-google / de-big US tech this needs to be my next move.
Trying to convince my better half to do it on his laptop is a pain. I'm under if you degoogle my chromebook now or once it loses support.
So reading more into it, it's (currently) only on the bogus copilot+ PCs they were peddling? I'm happily on bazzite, but this is good news for my stubborn mates that haven't touched copilot+ shit.
Oh give it time it will appear after an update on everything else, "accidentally".
Would be interesting to see how microsoft kills windows in the long term and then be shocked as to how this happened
Kind of like how they fucked up and let zoom become the pandemic program everyone used despite skype being so established it had already become a verb like google? M$ really racking up those wins recently
Or the windows phone too
Zoom was already everywhere in the business world before the pandemic.
Seems like Skype was only for personal users who were not very techy and wanted to make free calls overseas.
Yeah Skype was already dead by then and when normies wanted to start using video calls on the reg, they ended up with zoom either because their work were already using it elsewhere or from being recommended by others that had that as their reason.
Don‘t say no one was warned…
laughs in Linux
There's nothing to laugh about. The maniacally evil thing about recall is, that it doesn't matter what you do to keep your devices clean. If you interact with someone who doesn't keep his devices clean, which is 100% of us, you're on recall
Good thing I have no friends to interact with then! Take that, Microsoft!
Roll it back in please.
My windows10 install still asks me to complete the setup...lol no
I opt-out.
Just like opting out of using a Microsoft account to log into windows, the grips will get tighter and tighter over time until you are forced to use butt hole ID to unlock your screen.
Me too... well using linux is technically opting out to that right?
It's the only way to be sure Microsoft won't sneakily turn it back on.
At least until they sneak it into VS Code's telemetry. ...only sort of joking.
Get recalled
